Five Minutes
by Forever-Diamonds
Summary: Future AU Because Klaus' death is a relief but what about all the people they've lost? Elena needs to forget, Damon just needs her to love him back.


**A/N: This came to me in the shower yesterday, just randomly. It's angsty, because I can't seem to write anything else at the moment, but also happy at the end. It's future and a little AU and also kind of my headcanon for when they eventually get rid of Klaus. I hope you enjoy it, and I would love your feedback.**

The day they finally kill Klaus, everyone smiles and cheers and Alaric even opens champagne which he hands round generously in dainty little crystal flutes.

Elena doesn't drink, just sits and stares and pretends to smile because, really, she feels bad denying them their happiness when they've suffered so much pain. But when Jeremy starts doing a victory dance on the living room table and Tyler and even _Matt_ join him she just can't take it anymore so she slips out quietly and _runs_, the sound of uproarious laughter following her all the way down the street.

Damon finds her in the cemetery half an hour later. He's alone, and she's glad, because at least it means no one back home has missed her yet. And when he moves to stand beside her at Jenna's grave and says, "She would have been proud of you," she nearly cries because he's not smiling or cheering or congratulating her like the rest of their motley crew and it means he _understands_.

Because Klaus' death is a relief but what about all the people they've lost?

She gets to her feet, dusts the dirt off her jeans and glances up at him. She takes one look into his shining blue eyes so full of sadness and compassion and _love_ and makes a decision.

"Five minutes."

ooo

The 67 Camaro, icy blue and slightly battered, takes them to San Francisco and Denver and Seattle and who knows where, really. They go everywhere and nowhere and all the places in between, never staying longer than a week and just _living_. Elena hopes than if she wishes hard enough, she can pretend she's normal again.

Damon keeps the roof down and drives with one arm, raven hair windswept and aviators permanently glued to his face. The sunglasses mask his eyes and with them the endless emotion that pours out of them, but she's relieved because she can't deal with him loving her incessantly, passionately, completely. Not yet.

As he turns onto some long-forgotten country road Damon looks over at her with a smirk that does funny things to her insides before turning away again and she can't help but smile to herself because road trips have always been their thing. They've barely spoken in two weeks but she knows that he's thinking about all the memories they made in this car, which just like them is battered and bruised but managing not to fall apart.

It's only later, when they're lying in separate beds in some crappy motel off the Pacific Coast Highway that Elena realises how well they know each other, that he's the only one in this messy, painful situation they're in that really understands.

She cries herself to sleep that night.

ooo

Elena's eighteen and sitting in her kitchen and watching the first boy she ever loved collect weapons and make plans. She watches him teach her sweet and innocent younger brother the best place to stab a vampire with a vervain syringe and realises that this is the end for them. The Stefan she knew before _Klaus _happened has gone forever and she knows that no matter how hard she tries, or how much she prays, that he's never coming back. She watches Jeremy leave and sighs when Stefan offers her a rose and the promise of a dream. The way he looks at her, so open and honest and full of feeling, almost convinces her that the old Stefan has returned for good but then she remembers all the things he's done, all the things he's said since they dragged him back from the edge and it makes her heart hurt.

She accepts the rose but declines the offer of a rekindled romance and sends him away before he can try again.

That night she calls Damon. He answers on the first ring, he always does, and she can barely get a sentence out before she bursts into tears. He lets her cry, listens to her sob for half an hour and doesn't hang up. He's at her house an hour later, when she's finally done weeping, rubbing circles into her back and holding her close.

Sometimes she wishes she could hate him because at least it would mean she wouldn't have to feel so _confused_.

ooo

The first time he sleeps in her bed she wakes up in the middle of the night and just watches him sleep, marvelling at how peaceful and untroubled he looks. How _human_. She admires his chiselled features, lets herself become immersed in his beauty; here in the darkest part of the night where she doesn't have a ripper sort-of-boyfriend and doesn't need to feel guilty about what her heart truly desires. She watches him sleep and the faint stirrings of an emotion she can't place remind her that she's human, and that she's not perfect. _None of them are, not really_. It amazes her still how someone can love her so completely and utterly and without question, despite all her flaws and imperfections. She cries that night because she feels things she shouldn't be feeling, and because she has no idea what she's doing. This dance they do around one another, it's causing more harm than good, but neither of them can seem to stay away.

She doesn't sleep much more that night, she can't, her mind is too full of thoughts. She's surprised Damon hasn't woken up by now, what with her soft sobs and sighs and tossing and turning. She's surprised he can't hear the frantic buzzing of her thoughts.

After she gives up the pretence of sleep she goes back to staring at him, just listening to the soft noises he makes, watching his every movement like a hawk. She knows she'll remember this night for a long time, even if she can't admit the reasons why. As it gets closer to dawn she feels suddenly emboldened, and reaches out to ghost her fingers over his face. But then she feels him stir and knows he's waking up so she drops her hand abruptly and shuts her eyes. The missed opportunity is a harsh reminder of the constant distance between them, the unbreakable barrier that is stopping them from being Damon and Elena the way they should be.

Damon makes a small noise and she feels him sit up. The way the hairs stand up on the back of her neck lets her know that he's staring at her, checking that she's still asleep and safe. Satisfied, he settles down again and soon she hears quiet snoring coming from his side of the bed. She's thankful he thought she was asleep. The less they talk at the moment, the better, because she can't trust her feelings at the moment and fears that if she lets herself get lost in him, just once, she'll never be able to leave him.

She's become good at feigning sleep so that no one would see her cry at night.

ooo

The first time they kiss, _really_ kiss, she stays up the whole night writing in her diary. Her feelings spill from the nib of her pen onto the paper like the tears she's holding back. That kiss threw a spanner in the works, confused her so much that she barely remembered her own name afterwards. Despite being something of a hopeless romantic, she'd never quite believed the old adage about seeing fireworks. All the kisses she's had had been nice, sometimes even great, but never so mind-blowingly fantastic they made her see stars. When Damon Salvatore kissed her it was like the Times Square fireworks at New Year.

The way he looks into her eyes after he's just made her world stop turning, full of anxiety and worries but also pure unbridled joy because she'd _kissed him back_ breaks her heart a little. That's another difference between the Salvatore brothers, although she hates to compare them. Stefan loves with all his heart.

Damon loves with all his _soul_.

She does end up crying that night because sometimes words just aren't enough, not even ones printed on the yellowing pages of her diary. Her tears soak the paper until the ink runs and everything she's written, all her innermost thoughts, are smudged beyond comprehension. She thinks, bitterly, after she's finished crying yet again, that that's how her life feels at the moment.

ooo

When Alaric's diagnosed as a psychopathic killer whose malevolent alter-ego is running around bumping off Founding Family members, she wishes briefly that none of this had ever happened to her, to any of them; that there was no such thing as vampires or witches or werewolves and she was just a normal teenage girl whose biggest concern was what dress to wear to prom.

She shakes the thought from her head immediately; if supernatural creatures didn't exist, she'd probably be dead, and she would never have met Stefan. Damon too, although they aren't on speaking terms at the moment. Every time she hears Rebekah's name it makes her toes curl in anger and disgust and another sensation she can't quite place…jealousy? But when Caroline asks her why it doesn't bother her that Stefan probably slept with Rebekah, that she _loved _him once, she doesn't answer, because she's scared of what her response might mean.

Alaric comes back from the hospital traumatised – it's not every day you get told you're secretly a psychopath whose hobbies include murdering the Founders of Mystic Falls – but otherwise unharmed. She's on the phone to Bonnie all day, and when she finally answers and says that yes, she _can _help Ric with a spell, Elena is so relieved she nearly does a jig.

When she and Stefan get home later to find Meredith Fell bleeding out on the bathroom floor, she doesn't even know what to say, and Stefan's feeble attempts at comforting her after they manage to subdue the maniacal history teacher she's come to think of as an uncle leave her feeling more distressed than she was before. She remembers a time when Stefan was the only person who could console her, and wonders what has changed since then.

It's hours later, when Damon saunters into Bonnie's house to take over as Alaric's babysitter, that she finds her answer.

ooo

After four weeks of barely speaking and lots of driving they wind up in Atlanta again. Elena's surprised it's taken them this long, really, to go back to the place where it all started for them, when Damon stopped being Stefan's evil brother and became _Damon_, and she was transformed from Katherine 2.0 into _Elena_. It's one of their milestones and, despite Lee and Damon's almost death, one of the best trips she's ever had.

Bree's Bar is now McCreary's Pub or something dreadful like that but they go in anyway, just to look around, and leave a minute and a half later because although the building hasn't changed, it's just not the _same_. They buy burgers from some rickety stand and sit on a bench instead, just watching the world go by. She automatically checks for pickles; she despises them so much it's become a habit. When she finds none she's astonished, and glances up at the eldest Salvatore questioningly. "You remembered."

Damon pauses mid-chew and turns to look at her, lifting his ever-present aviators from his nose. Elena gasps a little; she had almost forgotten how blue his eyes were. "I would never forget," he replies, and then resumes chewing as if nothing had happened. It takes her a minute to collect herself, and she's about to say something deep and meaningful but then he's done eating and they're back to smirks and silence and more driving.

It's easier that way.

ooo

She turns her phone off three days in, tired of its incessant buzzing alerting her to new texts and missed calls, all from the worried people they left behind asking where she was and what she was doing and no doubt demanding to know if Damon had finally snapped, kidnapped her and whisked her away to the Caribbean. _If you want to find me so badly, do a locator spell_, she thinks angrily as she reads her last text from Stefan:

_Elena I'm worried about you. Are you safe? Did Damon hurt you? Please call me._

Then, five minutes later:

_I still love you._

She rolls her eyes at the last message and deletes it, just as she has done with all the rest. Stefan's declarations do nothing for her anymore; she's well and truly done with their relationship. And whilst some might argue that a love like theirs never dies, she knows that her and Stefan's 'epic love' was based on so many lies it became difficult to see the truth. Her naïve infatuation, for even though it seemed like love in retrospect she can only call it that, with the youngest Salvatore ended for good the day he left with Klaus.

She makes the mistake of turning her mobile back on a few days later. 924 new texts and 376 missed calls blaze up at her from the tiny screen. She takes one look at the figures and tosses the phone onto the highway. Damon raises an eyebrow from behind his sunglasses but says nothing; although she's sure she sees the corners of his mouth curl upwards in amusement at her tantrum. He doesn't buy her a new phone and she doesn't ask him to; after all, who would she contact when the only people she communicates with are the people she's running away from?

Elena feels amazed that they haven't come to find her yet, used her brother's blood to do a locator spell and descended upon whichever motel her and Damon happens to be staying in to whisk her away back to Mystic Falls. She can picture the scene in her head – Jeremy and Matt would break down the door, and then Alaric would burst in, armed to the teeth, followed by equally hostile Bonnie and Caroline. She imagined, smiling slightly, that they'd even persuade Tyler to help them. Stefan would be last, blundering in with tears in his eyes, full of apologies for leaving her alone, promising to protect her forever more.

The last part of her fantasy makes her grimace in distaste, and she's glad she disposed of her phone so many miles away. When she voices her fears of being found to Damon he shrugs and smirks faintly. "We'll cross that bridge if we come to it."

It's an answer but it wasn't the one she was hoping for and it's infuriating and _he's _infuriating so she turns away with a huff and resumes staring at the landscape they're thundering past. They don't speak again for 500 miles.

ooo

When they finally get to New York, Damon spends the first day laughing at her childlike wonderment at the beauty of the Empire State. He laughs even harder when they're settled in the two-star hotel and she admits shyly that she'd never been to New York before. She frowns and tries to look affronted, but ends up laughing with him. It's the most fun they've had in five weeks of travelling, and she moves her bed a little closer to his while she listens to him humming in the shower.

He takes her all over New York, to all the best bars and clubs and quiet places he'd discovered over 170 years of vampirism. He tells her a small piece of him has always belonged to this sleepless city, and she's glad he chose to share it with her. They buy ice-cream and hotdogs and run everywhere like crazy teenagers and Elena thinks, looking up at the Empire State, that this is what _living _feels like.

"Let me take you to dinner tonight," Damon whispers as he sidles up to her with yet another ice-cream.

She doesn't know what possesses her to, but she agrees. When she asks him what she should wear, he just shrugs airily and hands her one of his many credit cards. "Something pretty."

But when she opens her mouth to question further, he's already gone, melted away into the New York crowds.

ooo

Elena ends up spending over 1000 dollars, and feels a little guilty as she trudges back to the hotel, thoroughly worn out. Damon isn't in the room when she makes it up there, and she knows he's left to give her privacy to change. For the millionth time since she's met the eldest Salvatore she finds herself wishing he didn't have to be so _nice_.

Hours later, when she's finally satisfied with her appearance, she makes her way tentatively out of the room and down the main stairs. She's pleased to see Damon is waiting for her in the lobby, and even more pleased to watch the way his mouth drops open at the sight of her. The crowded lobby goes silent as she descends the stairs, winks at Damon and takes his arm; allowing him to lead her out of the hotel into the limousine that's waiting for them with champagne on ice and a chauffeur in a ridiculous cap. For the rest of the evening, the bewildered people in the foyer wonder what such beautiful people were doing in a place like that.

Damon takes her to Per Se, one of the best restaurants in New York. Everyone there looks so elegant that she feels out of place, until Damon tells her that she's the most beautiful woman in the room. She smiles gratefully at him and kisses him on the cheek before sauntering off after the waiter. Engrossed in her menu, Elena misses the way his fingers reverently touch his cheek where her lips had brushed it.

Dinner passes too quickly for her liking, but it is wonderful nonetheless. They drink champagne and the food is sublime, and Damon flirts shamelessly with her all evening. What shocks her is that she finds herself flirting back.

As they climb out of the limo at the end of one of best nights of her life Damon grabs her wrist and spins her around to face him. She sees hesitation flash through his cerulean eyes as he leans closer to her, and suddenly she can't stop the onslaught of feelings that she's tried so hard to keep buried for so long. "I think," she murmurs, "I think I'm falling in love with you." And then she kisses him.

It's tender and sweet but also raw and passionate, nothing like their first kiss on her porch all those months ago. Neither of them is holding back now, it's too late for that. They're in too deep, drowning with no hope of salvation. His hands come up to cup her face as she winds her arms around his neck and pushes her fingers into his raven hair. They pull each other so close, but yet it never seems to be quite close enough. This time there's no guilt to hold back all the feelings that have been building ever since she stumbled into the Boarding House living room.

They break apart, gasping for air, and an airy laugh bubbles from her throat at the bewildered expression on his face. They share a bed that night, lying in the comfort of each other's arms and simply listening to each other breathe.

She finds his sunglasses in the morning and throws them out of the window.

ooo

After another month and a half of road tripping they return to Georgia again. They sit on the same bench, but this time her head is on his shoulder and they're sharing a pickle-free burger and _talking_. They've spent seven blissful weeks together as a couple, and Elena thinks, giddily, that she'll never get tired of introducing them as such. Once again they watch the world go by, and the brunette sighs in contentment. She realises, happily, that she finally has everything her heart desires. Almost.

She hasn't thought of home for about two months, but suddenly she finds herself missing Mystic Falls and all the people she left behind. The purpose of this road trip had been to cleanse her soul, to find freedom and be a normal girl again, sans Originals and curses and bloodshed. She had wanted to forget, for a while, and now that she has she finds herself longing for what she was running from. She hasn't thought of home for about two months.

Her smile broadens, and she sits up straighter, lacing her fingers through Damon's. His azure, sunglass-free gaze shifts to her, and his eyes radiate happiness and love; and he looks deep into her soul and _understands_. Five minutes is finally over.

"It's time to go home."

**A/N: So, how bad was it? Please let me know your thoughts, every piece of feedback is greatly appreciated.**


End file.
